The Middle Ages are known as a god-fearing time, a time of hard work and of squalid living conditions for the majority of the population – or as a time of opulence that graced only the courts and halls of the reigning monarch. In The Secret Middle Ages, Malcolm Jones presents a completely fresh view of the medieval world that will blow all stereotypes out of the water.Using a wealth of little-known and recently discovered artefacts, and drawing particularl...

The papers that comprise this study examine the ongoing state of management reforms in the People's Republic of China. The contributors explain how and why these reforms came about and where they are heading.

China has become one of the fastest-growing economies ever seen in the world in recent times. In the last three decades, China has transformed itself from a command economy to a market one, albeit a nominally socialist one, and its management systems have been reformed accordingly. In the light of these changes, Malcolm Warner, one of the leading authorities on management in China, explores the past, present and future of Chinese management. The first part of the work examines the history ...

One of the critical issues facing both the Chinese government and businesses operating in China is the lack of trained managers. This book, with contributions by internationally-known scholars from a wide range of countries, examines the Chinese response to the challenges of management training and development. It considers the development of business schools in the PRC and the impact of foreign partnerships on their operation. It summarizes the current trends in management training and de...

This study, written in the context of its first publication in 1970, discusses and documents the invasion of privacy by the corporation and the social institution in the search for efficiency in information processing. Discussing areas such as the impact of the computer on administration, privacy and the storage on information, the authors assess the technical and social feasibility of constructing integrated data banks to cover the details of populations. The book was hugely influential b...

Since China has now become the world’s largest energy consumer, its energy sector has understandably huge implications for the global economy. This book examines the transformation of China’s conventional and renewable energy sectors, with special attention to state-business relations. Two studies examine the development of China’s energy profile, especially China’s renewable energy. Two others explore governmental relations with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their reform. Despite dra...

This volume sets out in search of what we call ‘Confucian HRM’ in Greater China and beyond. It covers theory and practice not only in the People’s Republic of China but also in the Overseas Chinese (Nanyang) Diaspora, namely in Hong Kong and Taiwan, among others. It will seek to understand how far traditional Chinese culture and values continue to influence the degree to which the human resource management (HRM) as adopted in those cultural contexts has been implemented.Confuci...

This symposium explores Chinese people-management as an academic subject, looking at where it is currently going and the likely direction of its progress. After the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China saw the introduction of Human Resource Management (HRM). This book discusses the specific issues which are relevant to its evolution in China, in particular whether there is a dominant ‘paradigm’ in the field and whether there might be a new one in the making. It looks...

Today, with a new leadership in place, the People’s Republic of China enters a challenging new phase as an emerging economic superpower. The Chinese economy has dramatically changed over the three decades since Deng Xiaoping launched his economic reforms in 1978. It has been transformed from a command economy dominated by state-owned enterprises to a market socialist economy with a wide range of ownership forms, both public and private. In turn, its managers and management have correspondi...

This edited volume first considers the economic background of the recent changes in HRM in the People's Republic of China from 1978 to the present day, exploring the change from a command economy to a more market-led one. It then goes on to look at the demise of so-called 'iron rice bowl' policy once dominated by a Soviet-inspired Personnel Management model to one now characterized by possibly Japanese, as well as Western-influenced HRM, albeit with what are widely described as 'Chinese ch...

Five years into World Trade Organization membership, how is China’s system of people-management adaprting to the changing world? This edited book provides an up-to-date, state-of-the-art overview of current theory and practice of human resource management, ‘with Chinese characteristics’. The latter is a phrase used to refer to the specific cultural, institutional and social setting in which such management structures and processes are to be found in the ‘Middle Kingdom’.As the Peop...

This book evaluates the evolution of 'Big Business in Asia', as we enter the new millennium. It focuses on recent issues affecting large corporations, both indigenous and foreign owned, such as multinational companies and international joint ventures, as well as on key events such as the Asian Crisis and its aftermath, China's entry into the WTO, the recent downturn in the world economy and the onset of SARS.A special issue of the journal Asia Pacific Business Review.